Just bought a new Windows 7 machine from my local computer store; spend some serious money for a desktop system, with a i5 board, 2 decent graphics cards, 1TB hard drive, 6G memory, and more.
The pain started in the second day.
First issue was mapping to my existing server (a Windows Homer Server system) drives. ‘Been using them for a year from my old XP system. Found out that mapping network drives from a Windows 7 system isn’t as aesy as it is from an XP system - should it be that way? No. Partly my own fault; I didn’t buy Windows 7 Professional edition, I bought Windows 7 Home Premium. I thought that the word “Premium” and the $200 price tag meant something serious. Apparently not.
The system could see my network drives, but they weren’t visible in the Map Network Drive dialogs. (Why the hell not !??!) After 6 hours of fumbling and bumbling (including some of my own special breed of incompetence), I was finally able to get it done.
So then I started loading up my mission-critical apps: Acrobat, MS Office 2007, Google Chrome, MS Security Essentials, FileZilla, iTunes, and the drivers to my HP mega-printer and my Nikon camera, Corel Graphics Suite x4, and a few other things.
Then when I powered down on the 2nd day, it insisted on loading 12 or so updates, which it did, and then promptly gave me the BSOD. DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE. Sounds like a fun thing to research instead of doing boring stuff like work... Turns out that a out of date driver can cause that. Took a shot in the dark, and uninstalled my Nikon camera drivers, and that seemed to work. The end of the problems? No, sir!
Now, my work documents use a particular font not supplied by either Microsoft or Corel, but I’m prepared, as always. My now accessible network drives contain the needed fonts. Install them, and presto- MS Word has run out of memory. Because I installed one font. @$%#$@#%@#$!!
And that could be caused by an out of date Normal.dot file. Okay fix that. Now it works.
So now, maybe I’ll be alright.
But why does all this crap happen? I am really sick and tired of dealing with this crap. Every hour I waste on fiddling with this crap is an hour lost from serving clients and spending time with my family. Why can’t computers just work?
I swear, I could even find myself looking at a Mac at some point. Okay that won’t likley happen, but Android? Maybe. We’ll see...
The pain started in the second day.
First issue was mapping to my existing server (a Windows Homer Server system) drives. ‘Been using them for a year from my old XP system. Found out that mapping network drives from a Windows 7 system isn’t as aesy as it is from an XP system - should it be that way? No. Partly my own fault; I didn’t buy Windows 7 Professional edition, I bought Windows 7 Home Premium. I thought that the word “Premium” and the $200 price tag meant something serious. Apparently not.
The system could see my network drives, but they weren’t visible in the Map Network Drive dialogs. (Why the hell not !??!) After 6 hours of fumbling and bumbling (including some of my own special breed of incompetence), I was finally able to get it done.
So then I started loading up my mission-critical apps: Acrobat, MS Office 2007, Google Chrome, MS Security Essentials, FileZilla, iTunes, and the drivers to my HP mega-printer and my Nikon camera, Corel Graphics Suite x4, and a few other things.
Then when I powered down on the 2nd day, it insisted on loading 12 or so updates, which it did, and then promptly gave me the BSOD. DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE. Sounds like a fun thing to research instead of doing boring stuff like work... Turns out that a out of date driver can cause that. Took a shot in the dark, and uninstalled my Nikon camera drivers, and that seemed to work. The end of the problems? No, sir!
Now, my work documents use a particular font not supplied by either Microsoft or Corel, but I’m prepared, as always. My now accessible network drives contain the needed fonts. Install them, and presto- MS Word has run out of memory. Because I installed one font. @$%#$@#%@#$!!
And that could be caused by an out of date Normal.dot file. Okay fix that. Now it works.
So now, maybe I’ll be alright.
But why does all this crap happen? I am really sick and tired of dealing with this crap. Every hour I waste on fiddling with this crap is an hour lost from serving clients and spending time with my family. Why can’t computers just work?
I swear, I could even find myself looking at a Mac at some point. Okay that won’t likley happen, but Android? Maybe. We’ll see...
Keith - I feel your pain. Go Mac man, it's painless, fun, and reliable! And sadly expensive.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, clients are almost exclusively Windows shops. There are several other reasons to hang on to the Windows world, but that's the biggest one...
ReplyDelete